Glory does not dispense her favours to the deserving with an equal
bounty. Painters as well as authors often suffer from the caprices of
the inconstant goddess. While there are some who, guided by her
benevolent hand, attain the pinnacle of fortune at the first attempt
and almost without effort, other artists with a genius akin to that of
Millet live in a state bordering upon penury and die in destitution.
Renown seeks them out later, much too late, and tardy laurels flower
only upon their tomb.
Puvis de Chavannes for a long time fared scarcely better than these
illustrious mendicants of art. He experienced the bitter pangs of
injustice, the hostility of ignorance, the discouragement of finding
himself misunderstood. If he was spared the extreme distress of Millet,
it was solely because he was the more fortunate of the two in possessing
a small private income. But nothing can crush the spirit of the born
artist; neither contempt nor ridicule can hold him back. Puvis de
Chavannes was endowed with a valiant and a tenacious spirit. Entrenched
within the loftiness of his artistic ideal, as within a tower of bronze,
he was steadfastly scornful of critics, affecting not to hear them; and
never would he consent to disarm them by concessions that in his eyes
would have seemed dishonourable. Yet this rare probity brought its
own reward. The great painter attained the joy of seeing himself at
last understood, and not only understood but admired during his
life-time. He must even have derived an ironic satisfaction from
counting among his warmest adherents certain ones who had formerly been
conspicuous as his most violent detractors.
[Illustration: PLATE II.--THE PIETY OF SAINT GENEVIEVE
(In the Panthéon, Paris)
In this composition, exceptionally fine in feeling, Puvis de Chavannes
shows how much importance he attached to landscape, which was the
natural setting of his paintings, and which he treated with as much care
as his personages themselves.]
Today the glory of Puvis de Chavannes shines forth in uncontested
splendour. No one dreams of comparing him with any of his
contemporaries, because his art reveals no kinship with that of any one
of them. He is recognized as the successor and the equal of the great
fresco painters of the Italian Renaissance. Even to these he owes
nothing, having borrowed nothing from them. But he shares with them his
passionate love of truth, his nobility of inspiration and sincerity of
execution. There are no longer insinuating and derisory shakings of the
head in the presence of his works. One must be devoid of soul in order
not to sense their beauty. Even the ignorant, in the presence of this
form of art which they do not understand, gaze upon it with respectful
wonder, as upon something very great, the content of which they fail to
make out, although they realize its power from the inner emotion they
experience.
"My dear boy," wrote Puvis de Chavannes to one of his pupils, "direct
your soul compass-like, towards some work of beauty; that is the way to
achieve it in its entirety."
It is because he directed his own soul, compass-like, only towards works
of a noble and pure beauty, surrendering himself with all the ardour of
his impetuous and vibrant nature, that Puvis de Chavannes has taken his
place as one of the noblest figures, not only in contemporary painting,
but also in the painting of all times.